


Five Years

by StarrySkies282



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Avengers: Endgame (Movie), Multi, Natasha Romanov Feels, POV Natasha Romanov, The formatting is slightly screwy sorry, Those five years, angsty??, i am a wreck after Endgame, poor Nat, unedited
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-06
Updated: 2019-05-06
Packaged: 2020-02-27 06:03:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,335
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18733069
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/StarrySkies282/pseuds/StarrySkies282
Summary: The Avengers were fractured now, broken. Scattered. Each parting to deal with the magnitude of their failure: the weight of its consequences. Alone.Natasha remained, holding down the fort at their old base. It’s full of memories: good, bad, painful. She keeps all comms open. Trying to adjust to this broken new world while trying not to let go of the desperate hope that maybe, maybe there was some way to fix this all.





	Five Years

**Author's Note:**

> Heyyy sooo Endgame really messed me up— I cried so much and so now I’m just writing to try and work through. Hope you enjoy, and let me know what you think x

They had lost. Thanos had succeeded in his plan— wiping out half of all life across the universe.  
Tony Stark had eventually returned to Earth, along with Nebula, brought back by Carol Danvers.

In a last-ditch attempt to save the universe, the remaining Avengers had sought out Thanos, hoping to reverse the Snap. To avenge those they had lost. The hope was shattered, however, after the revelation of the destruction of the stones. So they returned to Earth, the only victory being the demise of Thanos which did not have the same effect on the team as it would have if they had succeeded.

The Avengers were fractured now, broken. Scattered. Each parting to deal with the magnitude of their failure: the weight of its consequences. Alone.

 

Natasha remained, holding down the fort at their old base. It’s full of memories: good, bad, painful. She keeps all comms open. Trying to adjust to this broken new world while trying not to let go of the desperate hope that maybe, maybe there was some way to fix this all. They were the Avengers after all.

They had each gone their separate ways. Thor was the first to break contact. He left to set up New Asgard in Norway— on sacred land in ages gone by. He had completely withdrawn from the rest of the world, according to the Valkyrie. Natasha didn’t blame him.  
His whole planet had been destroyed. He had lost so much. His mother, his father, his best friends. His brother. She could only imagine how that felt. If that had been Clint. _Clint_. A lump caught in her throat: it was still too painful to think about. Laura, Cooper, Lila, Nathaniel. Gone. And Clint... he had vanished almost completely.  
There were only occasional reports from Rhodey on where he had been, on what he had done. He kept tabs on Clint for Natasha whenever he could, between all the aid work, the monitoring of disturbances, helping those who remained to rebuild their lives.  
It pained Natasha to know that Clint was out there, not wanting to be found. That instead he fled from her.

  
She loved him like a brother. His family like her own. She wanted to be there, to help him through. But he did not want to be found. He who had found her, bought her in and away from the darkness— the cold of the Red Room. Helped her find her way in the world. To find a place.

She had tried to leave messages for him, as they always did when they were separated, undercover, on separate missions. But they always went unanswered. Maybe it was that by the time she sent them, he had moved on to elsewhere, maybe he chose not to answer. She rather hoped it was the first.

 

Even Steve had fled. He couldn’t stand staying. Natasha knew he wanted to be away from anything that reminded him of Before. So he did what he could to try and help others to cope, to help them ‘move on’ in this strange new world. He would come back to check on things at the base occasionally. But he was not the same Steve Rogers. Before, he would have stayed, helped Natasha to rally the others, tell them the job was not yet done. But not anymore.

 

Tony said he didn’t want any part of it anymore. He had moved on. Married Pepper. Had a child, a daughter— Morgan, who Natasha often went to see at their new lake house. She knew that this was Tony’s way of forgiving her— allowing Morgan to know ‘Auntie Nat.’ Even so, he made it clear that he did not want to participate in Avenging anymore. Sure, he’d try and help those who were displaced, handing out generous sums for aid, allowing his technology to help where it could, but he had another life now. Natasha understood.

 

Bruce was gone mostly too. He’d try to keep her updated, but he was off working through some issues he had with Hulk. Trying to fix it all. Nat knew it was because he blamed himself for not being able to Transform in that last battle. That he felt things would have ended differently had he had control over Hulk. Gradually, they lost touch. But Natasha makes sure to keep tabs on him. To keep tabs on all of them who are still here, but scattered. Gone but not lost.

 

Carol returned to space. There were so many other planets out there in the universe, all experiencing exactly what Earth was. They needed help too. But she always made sure to dial into Natasha’s ever-open comms channel, reporting to Natasha, telling her about her findings. Or just calling to catch up. It made Natasha feel less alone, less isolated. Helped her through the long weeks and months that stretched before her.

 

It was a solitary life, this. Just her alone in the empty Avengers compound that was usually full of life, of noise. No one trained there anymore. It was strange seeing all the empty rooms, like a ghost town. Shadows of what once had been. Eerie reminders. Natasha had seen better ghost towns.

  
There were no voices, no laughter, no jokes, no shouts of Sam and Steve and Wanda as they trained. Only the echoes of memory. Only Natasha. Practicing, staying sharp for just in case. It gave her something to do. Something to take her mind of it all. Because if she did, if she allowed herself to think, to remember fully...

  
It had happened before. She had found an old jacket of Wanda’s hanging there, looking as though she was still here, and then it all came back to her.  
_“She’s not alone.”_  
The last time she had seen her they had been fighting, side by side.  
She didn’t deserve this. None of them did.  
The tears had come thick and fast, the emotion she hadn’t allowed herself to feel before. The pent up grief and anger and frustration.

  
Another time it was a spare arrow, lying discarded on the training room floor. The only physical evidence of Clint left, apart from the necklace around her neck.  
She couldn’t look at photos yet. It was too painful. She wondered if it would ever ease up. If she would ever get used to it.

—

Steve had told her to move on. That she didn’t have to stay here, that she didn’t have to do this.  
She disagreed. There was nothing else _for_ her to do, nowhere else she _could_ go. Besides, she felt it was her duty. They were the closest thing she had had to a family, the closest she could feel to belonging somewhere. Staying reminded her she had a purpose, no matter how small, how unnoticed. At least staying meant that she could, in some form, try and keep in contact with as many of them as possible. Try and keep them together. Try.  
_Staying together is more important than how we stay together_.  
She remembers saying that to Steve, all those years ago.  
And it’s still true.  
Because if there is a way that she can help fix them, fix the world, bring them back together, she’s willing to do whatever it takes. Even if it means facing the long nights alone, the days and weeks without any contact, the irregular, lonely meals, the regrets, the nightmares.

 

So when Scott Lang turns up at the front door, somehow miraculously returned alive from the ‘quantum realm,’ claiming he’s only been gone for five hours, talking of time travel with a crazy plan, she’s willing to take a chance. To bring the world to rights. For them. For all of them. Natasha knows that this time, there might not be a way out for her, that this might be it. She’s cheated death so many times already, _it’s bound to catch up with you_ she reasons to herself.

  
But she’s ready. Ready to save the world, one last time.


End file.
